Keith Yandle leads Phoenix Coyotes to win over Edmonton Oilers

GLENDALE – The Coyotes have made blown leads, high-scoring highlights and wacky comebacks trendy, relying on some if not all three methods in the past week to find two points – like they did in a Saturday matinee at Jobing.com Arena when the Coyotes outlasted the Oilers 5-4 in front of 11,684.

But coach Dave Tippett hopes this is style of play is simply a fad and one that becomes outdated in a hurry.

“I like scoring goals,” Tippett said. “Don’t get me wrong. I like some of the plays we’re making. But I don’t like us giving up four or five a night because you’re not going to win in this league like that.

“You can be a fun team but if you’re going to just go out there and give away chances and give away four or five goals a night, then you might be entertaining but you won’t be winning.”

In a three-game tour of the new Pacific Division this past week, the Coyotes scored 13 goals and gave up 13. They went 2-1, but it’s a challenge to win when the goal differential is even.

“Our game is not in very good shape, actually,” Tippett said.

After giving up four first-period goals Thursday in a 7-4 loss to the Kings, the Coyotes fell behind early again. Oilers winger Tyler Pitlick fanned on his first attempt off the rush but his second skipped between goalie Mike Smith’s legs at 9:59 of the first. Smith turned in 26 saves.

The start of the second was better with three straight goals keyed by defensemen against former Coyote backup Jason LaBarbera, who finished with 22 saves. Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s shot went off center Martin Hanzal’s skate and in 47 seconds into the period. Michael Stone’s shot from inside the blue line at 5:20 gave the Coyotes their first lead, and David Schlemko made it 3-1 27 seconds later with his point shot and first goal.

“If you look at our back end, every guy can jump into the play and make good passes and good plays,” defenseman Keith Yandle said.

The Oilers pulled LaBarbera after that and replaced him with Devan Dubnyk, but Dubnyk made only one save and played 39 seconds before the Oilers put LaBarbera back in.

But a two-goal lead wasn’t enough for the Coyotes, and the Oilers tied it at 3 before the end of the second. Center Will Acton poked a rebound five-hole on Smith at 8:03.

“You’d like to see our defense tie him up,” Tippett said.

And then winger David Perron finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play with 57 seconds left in the period.

“That’s tactically glaring when a guy’s got an open net from a foot in,” Tippett said. “Something went wrong there. Those are some things we’ll tactically look at Monday.”

The Oilers retook the lead 7:23 into the third with a Ryan Jones deflection in front of Smith, but the Oilers were in tough to maintain the edge once they started a parade to the penalty box. They committed three penalties in the period, and the Coyotes scored on two.

Yandle tied it at 10:40 with a seeing-eye point shot, his first, and then made a diving stop at the blue line on an ensuing power play to keep the puck in the zone.

“Little bit of a shortstop I’d like to think,” Yandle said. “Just try to do whatever you can to keep it in. It was kind of all or nothing.”

Eventually, the puck found its way onto Ekman-Larsson’s stick and he, too, buried it from the point with Hanzal as the screen in front of LaBarbera.

Ekman-Larsson finished with a goal and two assists, and the defense recorded seven points. To date, the defense has scored 10 of the Coyotes’ 40 goals – a quarter of the goals.

“We talked about getting more pucks to the net between the second and third, and I think we did a really good job of that,” Ekman-Larsson said.

The offensive contributions from the blue line have no doubt helped spur the outpouring of goals, which rank the Coyotes among the best in the league, but the departure from clean defensive play is worrisome to Tippett – especially since that’s supposed to be the identity of his team.

“Our game is going to have to get better, and don’t get me wrong I like winning,” Tippett said. “Any time you can win, you should have a smile on your face. But I look at it how are we going to win long-term? There’s just some things that need to improve if we’re going to win long-term.”

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